The Prom

A conservative high school in Edgewater, Indiana bars a lesbian student from bringing her girlfriend to the prom, a decision backed by the head of the parent-teacher association despite the principal's support for the girl. Meanwhile, two Broadway performers, Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman, see a costly flop destroy their careers and decide that championing her cause could restore their public image. They travel to the town with two fellow actors, Angie Dickinson and Trent Oliver, and their self-centred activism soon turns against them, pushing all four to reconsider what they are doing.

The Prom is a two-hour, eleven-minute comedy romance released in December 2020 in the United States, produced by Ryan Murphy Productions, Dramatic Forces and StoryKey Entertainment, and directed by Ryan Murphy. It is the fourth film he directed, following Running with Scissors, Eat Pray Love and The Normal Heart. Bob Martin, Jack Viertel and Chad Beguelin wrote the screenplay, and Murphy produced with Bill Damaschke and Dori Berinstein. Meryl Streep plays Dee Dee, James Corden plays Barry, Nicole Kidman plays Angie, Kerry Washington plays Mrs. Greene, Keegan-Michael Key plays Principal Hawkins and Andrew Rannells plays Trent, among a credited cast of 161.

Audience response has been modest: on IMDb the film holds 5.9 out of 10 from roughly 30,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.1 out of 10 from around 724 votes. A critics' rating of 5.8 out of 10 from 211 reviews places professional reviewers slightly below the larger IMDb audience and close to the smaller TMDB group, suggesting broad agreement that the film is middling rather than divisive.